makingandknowing - Canvas Preparation for Distemper Painting

Annotation - Canvas Preparation for Distemper Painting - Size & Priming?
Within the 'recipe' I am following, there is no specific discussion of preparatory sizing or priming. So I have looked elsewhere in the Ms. and to other sources for guidance.

Author Practitioner Advice / Information in the Ms.

<id>p060r_1</id>
<head>First whitening of the painting</head>
<ab>Apply two or three layers of <m>chalk</m> distempered with <m>glue</m> on the painting, not with a paintbrush but with a <sup>large<sup> brush as if you intended to rub it down, and leave to dry. And repeat this two or three times, then make the last layer quite even using a knife, <add>then apply a layer of <m>glue</m></add> upon which you will later be able to put your underlayer and then paint. But make sure that your first white layer is not too thick for it would break easily. Flemish painters have such paintings made by the dozen.</ab></div>

[<id>p060r_1</id>
<head>Blanchiment premier du tableau</head>
<ab>On couche par deulx ou trois fois de la <m>croye</m> destrempée à <m>colle<lb/>
de destrempe</m> sur le tableau, non avecq un pinceau mays avecq une broisse,<lb/>
en telle sorte comme si tu voulois poncer, & laisse seicher. Et<lb/>
reitere jusques à deulx ou trois fois, puys avecq un cousteau<lb/>
unis bien la derniere assiete, <add>puys donne dessus une main de <m>colle</m></add>, sur laquelle tu pourras aprés<lb/>
faire ton impression puys paindre. Mays garde que<lb/>
ton premier <m>blanc</m> ne soict pas trop espés, car il s’esclatteroit<lb/>
volontiers. Les painctres flamens font faire à douzaine tels tableaux.</ab></div> ]I would like to talk about the French with someone who has better French. What is the repetition of ‘destrempe’ here? Also, one is added to the line in the MS, like an extra/ correction.
This gives instructions for how to do priming layers. Could two or three layers of chalk, distempered with glue, be the appropriate priming for distemper painting on canvas? The idea of it ‘breaking easily’ if too thick, suggests that this could be intended for a canvas painting which would be rolled, or otherwise moved, in which case a thick ground layer would cause cracking.
The context could suggest this is to do with oil painting rather than distemper, as it is close to other discussions of painting in oil

<id>p065v_1</id>
<head>Mid-bright colors</head>
<ab>When colors are absorbed into the <m>canvas</m>, it means that it has been primed only once, and for this reason the colors become matte rather than shiny. But that is best, as long as you retouch it twice, for in this manner, the colors, having more body, will not fade and are much more beautiful, especially <m>azure</m> and <m>lake</m> and those that lack body. But those who want to dispatch their painting carelessly prime twice. Thus the colors will not be absorbed, therefore they will not last as long. The second layer of these colors will not be absorbed and will remain shiny.</ab>

Suggestion seems to be that for canvas, he does not recommend a double ‘priming’. But what is meant by ‘priming’ in his case?

I would suggest that the author-practioner’s preoccupation with putting down double layers, and allowing the first layer to sink into the canvas, which he repeats, is for oils primarily. I think this because at p.66r_4 he specifies that he is discussing oil, and repeats similar language about the need to allow colours to sink in, and for the same purpose. His concern is to prevent the fading of colours.

<id>p066r_4</id>
<head>Colors in <m>oil</m> that are absorbed</head>
<ab>It is best that colors in <m>oil</m> are absorbed, that is to say they do not remain shiny after they are dry because they do not fade. But if in some places they are shiny, it means that the <m>grease of the oil</m> has remained in that part which will make the colors fade. The varnish will hold all this together, unite it and make each part resemble the other.</ab>

<div>
<id>p065v_7</id>
<margin>left-bottom</margin>
<head>Priming</head>
<ab>You must be quite careful about this, and do not do it, as some will, using <m>gold</m> color made by cleaning the <m>oil</m> brushes, because <m>verdigris</m> and other corrosive colors included will end by fading the colors that are laid in after. It is useful to do it with <m>ceruse</m>, <m>yellow ocher</m>, and a bit of <m>massicot</m>,and make it scarcely thick so that it will not crack.</ab>
</div>

I think this gives advice for priming of a painting in oils, because it seems to correct earlier advice in the Ms. about making a primer for painting to be done in oil. In 065v_7 the author-pracitioner advises against using pigments from the cleaning of brushes, but at 056V he had said that one can use ‘colors collected from the vessel that is used to clean brushes.’ This seeming contradiction seems most likely to be a correction made to earlier advice on the basis either of experimentation by the author-practitioner, or further observation/ learning about painting practice.

056v_1
<ab>In order to remove the <m>grease</m> off <m>marbles</m>, one crushes <m>ordinary ashes</m> on it, which afterward are good to make the first primer of a painting to be done in <m>oil</m> in order to seal the cracks and veins of the <m>wood</m>. They are thicker than <m>chalk</m> and are quite greasy. They are mingled with the aforesaid <m>chalk</m> or with colors collected from the vessel that is used to clean brushes, and they are desiccative and spare the colors. Once this primer coat has been made on the <m>wood</m>, it is scrubbed with a knife until even. After, one makes a second coat with <m>ceruse</m> or with the poorest colors mixed together. On an <m>oil</m> canvas painting one only applies one coat and the mixed <m>ashes</m> can be used. Also, after crushing a color, one crushes the <m>interior of a large loaf of bread</m> in order to remove the <m>grease</m> off the <m>marble</m>.</ab>

</div>
<id>p062v_2</id>
<ab>When the priming has been done a long while ago, it becomes greasy. It must be scrubbed with <m>ashes</m> and <m>water</m>.</ab>
In 93v itself, the author-practitioner neither mentions a priming layer nor a size layer. This must be tacit knowledge, or available somewhere else in the Ms.

Materials research
Materials for the Preparatory Layer – Chalk and Glue

Chalk
"croye"
Cotgrave 'Croye: f. Chalke.'

Susie Nash, Burgundian Courts.
Chalk used by the Burgundian courts for painters’ use. It is described as being used for preparing grounds on the altarpieces and for the monk’s walls.
“At Champmol, chalk was also used as a ground layer over stone before it was painted: it is evident in most of the samples from the Great Cross, where it is found under the lead white or ochre priming/colouring layers.”

See info on googledoc about champagne chalk.

Glue
"Colle de destrempe"
Cotgrave 'Colle: f. Glue; also, solder; also the unprofitable corners of hides, and skinnes, cut off in the dressing'.
Hide glue might be the most appropriate translation then?

Also from Nash Burgundian Courts:
“This was to be mixed with glue made from the six benas- tons (baskets) of parchment clippings ‘a faire cole, pour coler lesdites tables et tableaux’ supplied with the chalk (Table 2, no. 32), and applied over the 64 aulnes of cloth ( ne toile de lin) supplied for lining the panels by Gillote, wife of Phillipe Arnault and sister-in-law to Amiot Arnault, the receiver general whom we met supplying ultramarine, above (Table 2, no. 28).”

Skill building experience

We painted on a panel that had first been primed with gesso, and then given a layer of rabbit skin glue.
I understood the rabbit skin glue layer to be the preparation required for painting in distemper thereafter.
This was different because we were working on a panel.

Research on distemper painting more broadly

Dr Erma Hermens Lecture - in Tuchlein painting we do not see a thick ground layer. That was developed later in canvas painting. The canvas weave remains visible. The surface is matte and powdery.
‘The canvases that have been pre-prepared for working in distemper have a very thin glue and chalk isolation layer.’

Sophie Scully and Christine Seidel, “A Tüchlein by Justus van Ghent: The Adoration of the Magi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Re-Examined,” JHNA 8:1 (Winter 2016), DOI: 10.5092/ jhna.2016.8.1.3
In discussing Netherlandish Tuchlein technique: ‘There was usually no ground preparation applied, but instead a glue size, that was sometimes toned. The painting medium was distemper, which is a catch-all term used to refer to pigments bound in a water-based medium, sometimes gum or egg white, but most often animal glue. This lean paint resulted in a matte surface, with the texture of the fabric remaining very evident.’… ‘The varied state of preservation of fifteenth and sixteenth-century tuchleins, combined with the small number of surviving examples, has long complicated comprehensive technical studies.’ p4
On the Justus van Ghent Tuchlein neither a ground layer nor a toning layer is present.

David Bomford, Ashok Roy, and Alistair Smith, “The Technique of Dieric Bouts: Two Paintings Contrasted,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 10 (1986): 44.
The size layer on the Bouts Entombment in London National Gallery of Art likely contains small quantities of umber.

Vasari, Durer to Raphael gift

Conclusion for experiment
For my first experiment, I am going to take the author-practitioner to mean a glue-based medium for distemper painting.
I will follow the instructions in the Ms at 60r_1 and apply 2-3 thin layer of glue and chalk mixed, followed by a layer of glue only. Would this make it difficult for the dampness of the sponge to come through to the surface to aid with painting as instructed in 93v? I do not think so. Would it prevent the bistre from ‘staining’ the canvas? I am unsure about this.